Desiree Lewis

Desiree Lewis has taught literary studies at the Universities of the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, Kwazulu Natal, and the Western Cape. She has also lectured on Women’s and Gender Studies at universities in and beyond South Africa. She has a research interest in literary and popular culture, global feminist knowledge and politics, the politics of visuality and representation, and postcolonial writing and culture. She has been a Fulbright scholar-in-residence, a research associate at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala Sweden, and a visiting researcher and lecturer in the United States and Sweden. She currently serves on the editorial boards of four academic journals and is a Council Member of the National English Literary Museum.

Desiree Lewis has also been active in developing feminist intellectual activist networks throughout Africa; within South Africa, and in the Western Cape. She undertook research and editorial work on feminist networking and knowledge production at the African Gender Institute between 2001 and 2003; taught course on feminist theory and epistemology for postgraduate students in the Zimbabwean-based network, SAPES between 1993 and 2005; has participated in webinars, workshops, and seminars on gender, race and sexualities in South Africa, produces accessible writings on and mentors new writers’ work on feminism and gender. She is the author of Living on a Horizon: Bessie Head and the Politics of Imagining, among other publications.